Paraguaná is a peninsula in Venezuela, which lies in the Caribbean sea, near Aruba Island. It has beautiful beaches, sands from the Sahara in a Dunnes National Park, two significant oil refineries, and the best preserved historical towns and buildings from Venezuela's Spanish colonization times.

Since it is only a few hours away from my hometown of Maracaibo, I spent countless holidays touring the peninsula and enjoying its beaches with family and friends. As an architecture student, I participated in photographing, measuring, and drawing the region's colonial architecture. As a professional photographer, I shot the oil refineries, the fishermen's townships, villages and personages. My personal history is more attached to Paraguna than to my hometown. Accordingly, short before immigrating to Canada, I developed the Paraguana Project, which soon became a farewell project. It is not causal that people in the images seem to be leaving, the clouds moving and the horizon endless.

These photos are the first-ever I shot using an infrared converted digital camera because I aimed to reflect the site's high luminosity and give the series a timeless and dreams-like look. I sought to preserve the paradisiac essence, inviting my audience to enjoy and reflect on the ecosystem's fragility before pollution in the name of progress overthrown it, and solely memories and remorse prevail.

Mirna Chacin, 2014